8-20. The Battle in the Arena (2)
Satou's here. It's said that the three major desires of man are sleep, appetite, and sexual desire. That's why it can't be helped that I lost to the appetite and did something careless. However, I plan to do my best as to not lose to the sexual desire. Since it's said that lolicon is one of the seven big crimes.
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Oops.
Even though it's alright since I'm in Nanashi silver mask mode, I might've been a bit too conspicuous.
Now then, wonder how I should deceive them.
No, this might be a good opportunity. I've been doing something like strolling alone incognito in an MMO hunting ground since some time ago, so if I make it really showy here, it might help in making exposing my true identity harder since it'll be different than my usual self.
Fortunately, the blood from the whales have evaporated into mist, so they should haven't seen me.
There's probably no one that can use [Clairvoyance] like me. I've tested this with Arisa, I can sense if someone is using it to see me with mana perception.
For now, let's do something about my voice. "A, aa, a", I alter my voice to be higher.
>[Strange Voice Skill Acquired]
It has to be the most showy one, so I decide to use [White Mask, Halo options attached].
These clothes were made when I was thinking with Arisa late at night with a strange tension, and went overboard. As for the garment, the clothes is white as the basic tone, and colored with gold threads. On top of having needlessly fluttering cloths in the style of miko, the shoulder, chest, and back areas are made to look gender-neutral.
I don't wear a mantle or an overcoat, and equip the usual white smile mask. The wig is the newly made one with long straight violet hair. It's not made from Arisa's hair of course. It's just a dyed white-hair wig.
I use illusion magic to add three shining halo options there that will make afterimages (blurs) when I move. As a bonus, I put bracelets on my ankles that are shining more intense as I move faster. I only need to put [<>], and [<>] and it's complete with this. I leave the title into [Unsung Hero], matching the Nanashi name.
It's a showy gaudy style that I absolutely won't wear when I am Satou.
Since I'm going to intervene anyway, I turn serious, and use Remote Arrows to destroy the two remaining beetle monsters, and the yellow-skinned demon's orbs. I directed the remaining arrows toward the yellow-skinned demon itself, but it could defend against the arrows. Several magic arrows seem to have been burned by the fire magic of the yellow-skinned demon. Using magic against magic is a good idea. I'll try it next time.
"Who's dhere?"
"Who are you!"
The yellow-skinned demon and the hero asked my identity in overlap.
While keeping distances to each other, both of them seem to be wary of me. I lower my altitude and descend to approximately 10 meters above the ground.
"Nanashi."
I utter my name briefly.
Thanks to maxing out Strange Voice skill, I can freely use any voice I want. I adjust the voice while imagining how a voice actress perform as a boy like. It's giving an impression of unknown age and gender.
The crisis perception warns me of the danger from the beautiful women behind the hero. That reminds me, it's been 2-3 minutes since the chanting begins. It's probably some kind of advanced level magic, but judging from this sensation, it's probably not a magic that should be used inside a town.
Not good.
That, I have to stop that.
It's been awhile since I feel this impatient. I cheeks the log just to be sure, it doesn't seem to be from mind magic.
The best way is to persuade the hero to stop them, but the problem is that there won't be enough time to do it, so I'm going to be forceful.
First, I use [Break Magic] to forcefully stop the chanting.
Of course, disrupting magic that's being composed causes the mana from the source to begin overflowing on the surrounding. I've expected this course of events from the result of doing magic experiments during late nights, so I use [Force Barrier (Mana Section)] to protect the beautiful women. It shouldn't be that strong of a defense magic, but it seems to have protected them without any problem.
However, there seem to be feedbacks from the forced termination of the magic chanting to some extents, they fall to the grounds on their knees.
"What are you doing!"
"That magic is too dangerous you know. Sorry, but I've made them stop the chanting you know."
The hero rushes to the women while protesting to me, but I give him the explanation after the fact. I changed my tone a bit to match my voice.
After all, if you're a hero, I'd like you to mind the damage to the surrounding a bit more. Please follow the example of Wingman from the rebroadcast a long time ago.
"This is laughable desu. Are you quarreling among yourselves desuka? You must have used illusion technique, and sent the great monstrous fish back to the summoning gate desune? Your friend has got quite some wisdom there desu."
Huh? You're going to interpret it like that eh.
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The hero's silver ship who seemed to have been hiding in the sub-space surfaced. White light emits from the bow of the surfaced ship.
It loiters for a while, but then after hesitating for a bit, it decides on the aim, and shoots a beam.
Unfortunately, it's aiming at me.
Apparently, they judged me as an enemy since they saw the hero was protesting to me. I curse at those simplistic people in my mind, but I do objectively look like a suspicious person after all, so I consent for a little. The mask probably doesn't inspire me as an ally of justice after all.
I stack <> and block the beam from the hero's ship with it. The Flexible Shield's HP rapidly decreases. Looks like it has about 4-8 times the power of my Laser. Since I can't be blocking it forever, I use [Condense] magic to divert the beam's direction toward the sky. It might have been easier if I had [Absorb Light] of shadow magic.
The ship's bow that's discharging the beam has become red hot, so the attack is probably going to stop soon. The hero is shouting something to his companions in the ship, but it looks like they can't hear him.
"So weak hero! <> Claiomh Solais."
Huh? The prince's here.
After the hero's ship, even the prince judges me as an enemy, and shoots the flying holy sword. I shift my face to the side to avoid the sword, and just before it passes me, I catch the grip, stopping it. The holy sword is going wild in my grasp, but it quiets down immediately after I draw out the mana from it.
However, prince, you sure looks quite exhausted.
When I was putting the whales into my storage, there were large quantity of parasite looking monsters falling together with the body fluids, that I didn't put into the storage, toward the arena. They were individually weak monsters, but they were falling just right to where the prince and his cohorts were.
I thought that the prince and his cohorts would be fine so I left them alone, but it seems they unexpectedly had a hard time. His armor is partially destroyed, and there are countless scars that look like they've been eaten from monsters remaining on the bare skin. He's doing well, not dying from blood loss.
The battle maniac boy is in more horrible state than the prince, but he's stabbing the monster corpses while laughing loudly as if he's gone mad.
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The yellow-skinned demon creates a summoning circle below its feet like it's trying to get away, so I use [Break Magic] to destroy the summoning circle. Next, I destroy the yellow-skinned demon's defensive magic with [Break Magic], but it seems to be multi-layered, it hasn't completely come off with one shot.
I quickly approach with Ground Shrink, and use [Mana Drain] on the yellow-skinned demon to snatch its mana away.
"Gununu! To have my mana easily stolen to this degree!"
The yellow-skinned demon isn't also letting its mana get stolen freely, it's doing various useless resistances.
"You bastard, you must be the true ancestor of the vampires desune."
This time I'm treated as a vampire huh.
For the time being, I continue to use the combo of hitting it with [Break Magic], followed by [Mana Drain]. The demon is saying something, but I noncommittally ignore it.
I can snatch 300 MP with one go. I've thought that it only has 710MP since it's level 71, but it doesn't seem like it's been emptied even after I've deprived it thrice. Apparently, demons have far larger MP pool than human. Its mana finally dried up after I snatch it 10 times. Doesn't it have more MP than me?
The snatched mana is too redundant, so I charge it into the holy sword that I've just got. At first the sword is the size of a one-handed sword, but it's growing bigger as I put more mana. If Arisa was here, she would have a weird idea while grinning with loose cheeks, no doubt bout it. The expansion stopped after I put around 500 MP. It's become as big as the replica in the museum.
After I've finished tearing off the yellow-skinned demon magic defense, stripped it off its magic power, and shaved 90% of its HP, I throw the demon toward the hero's party.
The hero's sword bisects the yellow-skinned demon that's come into his view without any hesitation. So it can be easily defeated when its defense magic has been broken after all. If I develop a magic that can break multiple magic at once, I can defeat them easily it seems. The yellow-skinned demon was saying, "I demand a restart noDESu", but what exactly did it want to restart was unknown until the end.
The magicians in his party are burning the remains with magic.
The hero steps before me. He still has his sword drawn. Come to think of it, he's not using a holy sword, but a magic sword. Did the holy sword break?
"What is your intention."
"Wasn't it your fated opponent?"
"Fuhn, I won't say thanks."
"I don't mind you know. You'd have defeated it if you had used the forbidden magic right?"
Judging from the yellow-skinned demon's composure, it probably had countermeasures for it, but it'd be boorish of me to retort with that.
However, this tone is a mistake. It's hard to talk.
"By the way, that stupid prince is going to die, you're not going to help him?"
I turn my view toward the prince from the hero's words, he's being toyed with by small fry monsters after seemingly getting inflicted by intoxicant poison. Looks like he's fighting with a dagger.
It seems that the hero doesn't want to actively help him.
I'm also fine with leaving him alone, but I have to eliminate the monsters anyway, so I decide to help him on the occasion.
It'd be faster if I use remote arrows, but let's try using the holy sword that I've just acquired.
"<> Claiomh Solais."
The holy sword Claiomh Solais leaves my hand, and multiplies itself like papers scattering away from a paper stack. It's split into 13 swords with thin blades. The true sword is wrapped in blue light on the exterior.
Aim marks like with [Remote Arrow] are displayed in my AR. I can also set the trajectory in similar fashion it seems. I shoot them at the small fry monsters just like that.
The blade cuts the monsters in successions as they evaporate by the holy light.
They were all around level 20 monsters when I first saw them, but there are some level 50 monsters mixed in before I knew it. It looks like they used skill called [Life Drain] to steal levels from the other monsters and the prince, and then grew up.
I see.
That explains why the prince's hair has become white somehow.
He also didn't have that many wrinkles, and his level should have been in upper 40s, yet it has been dropped to upper 20s now. The battle maniac boy is also like the prince, but he's in considerably better condition than the prince. His level is still in upper 30, and his hair hasn't aged to become white either.
Alas, it would have been better if I had waited to throw Claiomh Solais for a bit longer.
It should have been good enough for them to survive with their five limbs intact.